Obama: 'Laws of our land are catching up'

6/26/13 11:19 AM EDT

President Barack Obama voiced support Wednesday for the Supreme Court's rulings on two same-sex marriage cases, celebrating them as a major step forward for the country and one that will spur action by his administration.

"The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free," he said in a written statement, sent from aboard Air Force One en route to Senegal.

Amid an internet outage aboard the plane, Obama got the news by phone from White House staff on the ground in Washington, and also spoke with White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler about the high court's rulings. The president was "obviously pleased" by the Supreme Court's move, press secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard the plane. "He believes that this is a very good day for civil rights in our country and was just glad to see the decisions come down as they did."

In his statement, Obama said he "applaud[s]" the high court's decision to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, in which "discrimination was enshrined in law."

The law, which Obama directed his Justice Department to stop defending several years ago, "treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people," he said. "The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal – and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

With DOMA dead, Obama said he's directed Attorney General Eric Holder to work with members of his Cabinet "to review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly."

But the administration will do so with sensitivity, the president said. "Knowing that Americans hold a wide range of views based on deeply held beliefs, maintaining our nation’s commitment to religious freedom is also vital. How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions. Nothing about this decision – which applies only to civil marriages – changes that."

Minutes before the statement, Obama called Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, to reach the attorneys and plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case to congratulate them on the Supreme Court’s vacating of California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

"We're proud of you guys, and we're proud to have this in California," he said on a call that aired live on MSNBC. "And it's because of your leadership things are heading the right way. So you should be very proud today."

"Through your courage, you're helping out a whole lot of people everywhere," he added.

The president also called and congratulated Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the DOMA case. Obama told Windsor "he was heartened by the court's decision to strike down Section 3 of DOMA so that loving, committed couples could enjoy full equality under the law," Carney said. "And, he said, that it is fitting that this historic ruling should come today, just 10 years after the Court struck down laws making same-sex relationships illegal in Lawrence v. Texas."

POLITICO 44

"As long as walls exist in our hearts to separate us from those who don’t look like us or think like us or worship as we do, then we are going to have to work harder together to bring those walls of division down."